Lynn-Marie’s Speech Regarding Living with Bipolar Disorder I

“And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin

Try to imagine a loved one, someone you love more than anyone in this world, being suddenly pushed off a cliff and spiraling out of control into unimaginable darkness and terror without a parachute. Imagine walking a tight rope every day of your life without a safety net. Now imagine that someone is you. Every day is a struggle when you are mentally ill.

As an advocate for the mentally ill, I would like to quote American Poet E.E. Cummings who wrote, “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

I have volunteered to be a speaker in this program firstly, to honour those who have made me feel valuable, loved and genuinely admired and to those who have given me the hope and the courage to believe in myself. Those who have taught me the power of true love and the strength of spirit to soar toward aspirations I had never before imagined. Those persons include my family, my friends and countless mentally ill patients whom I have met both in and out of the psychiatric ward.

I am here with a message of hope and inspiration for those struggling with mental illness and their loved ones. The message being that the mentally ill do not always have to dwell in darkness, or forever fear living in a cardboard box and hollering at the moon.

I am here because this program provides hope to those struggling with mental illness.

I am here mainly because as a teenager I found my mother after she had attempted suicide while her five children sat downstairs in the living room watching television.

 For too many years, our family internalized our pain and we never spoke about our personal problems or our feelings. I suffered in silence because of the stigma attached to mental illness and talking about it was not cool in our family. I was incredibly shy. I hated crowds of people and every week for twelve long years, I fainted while at Mass, shopping malls, anywhere strangers were gathered in large groups. That was because I had a dark secret that I could not share with anybody.

I want to tell you my story because if in its telling I can help a single person, it may give my life a sense of purpose and provide meaning to that pain.  As a young girl and during my early twenties, I was frequently depressed and moody. But I dismissed this due to a dysfunctional family upbringing. I thought it was normal to feel this way. Even in joy, I would feel pain. I knew that happiness was temporary and when I was younger, I did not believe that I deserved to be happy. I was afraid to love, afraid to trust, afraid to push past the pain and come out of the shadows.

I was the student who sat at the back of the class, who seldom spoke, who remained aloof, distant and withdrawn. I was the student who few noticed, others considered weird and anti-social. I was the student who was never asked to the high school prom, but rather went with her cousin. I did not feel attractive or desirable.  And if I loved you, I certainly could not tell you because I was afraid that you would not love me back.

            I had friends, girls I had known throughout elementary school and high school, friends I walked to and from school with, who I attended parties and clubs with, but they did not really know me. I seldom spoke unless you spoke to me first and even then, I had little to say. For them it was awkward, for me it was terrifying. I would not let anyone penetrate the walls I built in order to protect myself, but in time, I learned that the walls did not protect as much as they isolate.

I never discussed my family problems. I could not identify my feelings let alone express them. I held everything inside. And on the night of my mother’s attempted suicide I did not call anyone to help me share my pain. How could I call my mother’s parents or her siblings and tell them what she had done?  I handled that nightmare alone and the fear haunted me for the better part of my life. I sat alone in the emergency room awaiting word on my mother lonely and afraid. I was afraid that she would die and I suspected that she may be mentally ill as she was always depressed. It was not until fourteen years later when I learned that she had unipolar depression and could not help herself without proper medication and professional treatment. My mother had no one to talk to, she had no close friends and she was not close to her family back then.

I could never tell anyone about my secret, about my being molested several times by several different men as a child and later a teenager until I was eighteen years old, when in a moment of anger I blurted it out to my mother, who sat in apparent shock and disbelief. She and my father said and did nothing. We dealt with it, just as we had all of the other traumas in our lives, including mom’s attempt to end her own life, we did not talk about it, as if not talking about it, if in not acknowledging it, we could fool ourselves into believing it did not happen. I was expected to forget the past and move on. I felt damaged, dirty, different, ashamed and broken. All I could see were my flaws and if that were all that I could see, I imagined that that was what others would see too.

Then one day, my husband Ian whom I have been married to for thirty four years happened into my life. Love found me, as it always does when I was not looking for it. It was not easy to overcome my fears and trust him enough to let him in. I told him everything that had ever happened to me, the things that I had not shared with another human being.

 Our life together has not been easy. As I developed bipolar depression eleven years into our marriage, but he has stood in the fire with me and not shrunk back. He has walked paths with me and stood by me when most men would have run in the opposite direction.

When I was thirty two years old, my brain began to suddenly malfunction. I could not sleep and had been awake for three full days. I ate very little. For one full day, I ate only bread and drank water. My thoughts began racing like a tape recorder on fast forward. I had so much energy I could not sit still. I was hallucinating and had felt more fear than I had ever known in my life. On other occasions I was absolutely fearless and delusional. I was losing my mind and I was acutely aware of it.

Bipolar disorder is not easy to live with. It cannot be cured but it can be controlled with the proper medication and knowledgeable compassionate mental health professionals whom I have been fortunate to finally find. It has been a long difficult journey, but so worth the effort. Nothing worth keeping ever comes effortlessly.  

            I had to quit my job driving school and transit buses and not tell anyone what had happened to me. At the time, I could not talk about it. For six long years I had no idea what had happened to me or why, it took that long for doctors to properly diagnose me. It affected my relationships with my family and my friends. I lost one very close friendship due to my extreme mood swings. My best friend (a social worker) could not handle the roller coaster ride we endured on a daily basis. She told me once that she had to deal with people like me all day in her job and did not need it in her personal life too. Needless to say, that hurt me more than I can possibly describe, but in time, I understood why she had to sever the tie between us. I am grateful for her friendship, for the lessons she taught me and the love she shared with me for as long as it lasted. She is a huge part of why I am here today and I cannot deny that.

            Some of my family members do not wish to discuss my illness or learn about it. This use to hurt me a lot, but I learned not to take it personally and to understand that it is most likely the fear that they themselves could possibly develop some form of mental illness themselves one day which prevents them from facing the darkness and overcoming their fears.

I have learned to embrace the pain and then let it go. I have learned through reading many books on the topic, one in particular “An Unquiet Mind” by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison that totally transformed my life. Having the disorder herself since she was seventeen, this psychiatrist biographical account of her own life inspired me to go back to school and I am currently working on my English Literature degree at Trent University’s Oshawa Campus. I had worked doing various jobs throughout the years since my recovery including driving school buses. The Ministry of Transportation and the company I worked for were both aware of my disorder. So long as I take my medication regularly and monitor my stress level, I lead a normal life. I have learned to not dwell on the darkness and the pain.

            I have spoken publicly in front of hundreds of people on this subject and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. I volunteer both with COPE Mental Health Program and now with TAMI through the Canadian Mental Health Association in order to give back to my community and to hopefully inspire others not to be afraid.

“Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw mud and the other saw stars.” If nothing else, I want you to learn about perception, what you focus your attention on is exactly what you will attract into your life.

 Once upon a time, all I focused on was the mud and eventually I learned that when it is dark enough, you will see the stars, for that is when they shine their brightest. Don’t focus on the dark, focus on the light.

 Make your life account for something and learn to make a difference. Every experience no matter how brief the encounter, good or bad, it is a learning experience. I have learned that God does not make mistakes and everything happens for a reason. I lost my best friend, my grandparents and my mother in quick succession, and thought I would never heal from the blows, but God blessed me with three granddaughters who fill that void and bring me more joy than I ever imagined.

Many of us with mental illnesses, we are stronger than we know, look what we have had to endure, and yet we are still here, still coping, still moving upwards and onwards. Those who do not know or want to know you, it is their loss. Pity them and not you!!! Be strong, be proud and be brave. Have the courage to go out on a limb, for as Hugo said that is where the best fruit is.